Crazy George Says He Created The Wave

On the telephone, George Henderson, better known to sports fans and other outpatients as Crazy George the cheerleader, was insistent.

"Tell them," he said on the line from Oakland, "I have the proof!"

By them, he was referring in particular to University of Washington football fans planning to attend this afternoon's game at Husky Stadium, home of The Wave.

Gleefully, George wanted Husky fans to know that when they rise and fall, hands overhead, in that trademark, full-throated, stadium-lapping roar, it belongs to him.

"I invented The Wave, not Robb Weller, not the U-Dub," said Henderson, 47, the professionally obnoxious, drum-banging cheerleader of college and professional sports teams for 16 years. "That's a fact."

And with the 10th anniversary of The Wave arriving in a few weeks - which George will celebrate in the Bay Area with a gloating halftime show at a San Jose State football game - he called to make sure I had history straight.

He was aware that Washington has long claimed The Wave as its creation, and that seven years ago I filed papers with the Library of Congress to copyright the cheer in the name of Sports Fans of Seattle, former Husky cheerleader Weller and band director Bill Bissell, co-creators of The Wave.

To this, George harrumphs.

"No way, no way those guys own something that belongs to me," he insisted. "I started it two weeks before they did. It's on film. Forty-thousand people were there. They'll all testify."

Here is George's version:

"It was Oct. 15th, 1981, Oakland Coliseum, the Oakland A's versus the New York Yankees in a baseball playoff game.

"I told the crowd first to stand in sections and boo. Then they sat down. After a second time, I said if you boo and sit down it won't work.

"The third time it took off and went around the Coliseum three, four times in a row."

Conversely, as both Weller and Bissell have told me, they created The Wave at the UW-Stanford game here Oct. 30, 1981.

Weller, now a host of syndicated TV shows and a Husky cheerleader from 1968-1972, was leading cheers for old time's sake at the homecoming game. At one point, he prodded students into a sort of vertical wave, which quickly faded.

Inspired, Bissell walked over and suggested Weller try the same thing laterally.

Like a gathering tidal movement, it began rolling slowly through the student section, then swept into the adjoining crowd sections. As Bissell's band pounded out a beat, the tide continued lapping spontaneously around the stadium.

Crazy George is correct, however, that his wave hit two weeks earlier, and even Weller has admitted that.

Except, having seen George's proof - film of that playoff game - I'd advise him to take his case to Small Claims Court.

The film shows a smattering of fans alternately standing and sitting, mostly in a vertical pattern. The motion then fizzles out. It could have been a wave - or just a beer vendor passing through the crowd.

No matter to George. In his mind, he's still No. 1.

"I'm like the Wright Brothers," he said.

On the other hand, before the Wrights, came those fellows with homemade wings, running down hillsides and leaping a few inches into the air.

I'm not sure who they were. Apparently, in aviation as in cheerleading, history tends not to record those who barely made a ripple.

Rick Anderson's column appears Saturday on Page A 2 and on Tuesday and Thursday in the City edition of The Times.